The Association of
Women Against Violence – AMCV:
Women Human Rights NGO combating all forms of Gender Violence, including sexual
violence, and discrimination against Women, Young people and Children;
- Intervention model focused on the respect for the informed decision-making by
the survivors, taking into account their safety and needs identification, in a
empowerment perspective and promoting autonomy
- Specialized services service on counselling and advocacy for women, young
people and children survivors of gender violence, including sexual violence,
and domestic violence (1 Centre and 2 shelters)
- Self help groups and self-representative Group of Women survivors of Gender
Violence

Opening hours:

Counselling and Advocacy Centre is open from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM

Languages spoken:

Portuguese, English, French and German

Additional information:

At European level, AMCV is founding member of Women Against Violence
Europe – WAVE and is represented on the European Women’s Lobby Observatory on
Violence against Women.

At international level AMCV has especial consultative status on ECOSOC.

AMCV has begun its work in 1992 giving support to women survivors of rape by
strangers, stumbling upon a huge lack of support and intervention resources,
forcing the survivors to a painful and mostly unsuccessful journey through the
justice and health system.
Since then, AMCV has been lobbying at national and international level for the
changing of the political agendas and legislation, the implementation of
specialized services taking into account the survivors needs, their empowerment
and protection, as well as for the civil and criminal de jure et de facto
accountability of perpetrators .
Over the past decade, Portugal has made significant progress on policy
strategies, legislation, scientific knowledge and professionals training, as
well as procedures and services supporting victims/survivors of Domestic
Violence.
However, a serious gap on resources still remains for other forms of violence
against women and gender violence, such as sexual violence and specifically
rape. There are still no specialized services for sexual violence, crisis
centers. Only a few intervention protocols, especially in forensic expertise
have been identified.

Therefore in 2013, AMCV has launched with success a project taking the
challenge of contributing for the creation of a national framework on sexual
violence intervention, to influence national policies and program strategies,
to promote a national intervention model with an articulate multi-agency and
gender perspective approach centered on the survivals needs and protection.
"New Challenges in combating Sexual Violence” is a project in the scope of
the Active Citizenship Program, co-financed by the European Economic Financial
Mechanism (EEA Grants) managed by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and started at
February 2014 having a two years duration.

In 2014 we hosted, in collaboration with Rape Crises Network Ireland
(RCNI), the IV International Conference on Survivals of Rape – IV ICSoR-
Rape, Survivors, Policies and Support Systems a European Challenge, which has
took place in November 20th- 22nd 2014 in Lisbon, Portugal. The IV ICSoR will
be hosted by the Association of Women against Violence (AMCV – Associação de
Mulheres contra a Violência) http://icsor.org/